Today we will focus on checking whether it is economically profitable to put a strip of LED lights or whether they really consume more than we think.
How much does an LED strip cost?
The cost of LED lamps, as you have heard many times, is low, but many factors influence their price, so it may not be so cheap if we have several of them in our house, but well, the question is whether it really compensates or not.
You can find many types, from 60 leds per meter of tape to 120 or more. In addition, it will depend on the degree of lumens that each has as well as its overall size and the power that we give it.
The first thing we will have to do is search in the box or on the Internet for the model and consumption of our device. Although if you can’t find it or don’t know which ones you bought, nothing happens, knowing the distance in meters and the number of leds of each that we can calculate by eye will be a very real approximation.
We will perform a simulation with an average cost (almost all LED strips sold have similar values).
A 5 meter LED strip with 60 LEDs per meter will consume approximately 5W/m. Its total consumption will therefore be 25W/h (5 meters x 5W). With this data we will only have to see how much we pay for each KW of electricity and get the total.
Assuming a cost of $0.17/KW, having a 5 meter strip would mean an expense of $0.00425 per hour, that is, rounding up, we would spend about half a cent. It would vary a bit depending on the intensity of the light itself. Having them at 100% is not the same as having them at 25% at night in ambient mode. Its consumption would be greatly reduced.
It is also necessary to take into account the number of LEDs per meter, if instead of 60 you have 120 your cost is multiplied by two.
Therefore, we can now calculate how much it would cost us to have them 24 hours straight for an entire month. We multiply the $0.00425 per hour x 24 hours x 30 days and the result is $3.06 per month
A fairly normal expense in my opinion. Now it depends on whether we only have 5 meters or surround a room of 15, as well as the intensity and the daily hours.
In my case, I have 8 meters of wall that I use as a night light while I watch TV, as well as 2 meters surrounding an aquarium that is at 10% for 24 hours. an expense like this wouldn’t mean 30 cents a month.
If you want to know which model I have, I’ll leave it here.
In summary, this type of lighting is very economical and we do not have to worry about whether we have them on all day or not, its consumption is so low that it can be used to replace other types of lights in our house and thus save on our bill, in addition to its beauty and the customization and automation options they offer us.